Left-wing terrorism claimed the lives of two innocent people last week in Washington, D.C.
Yaron Lischinsky, 30, was a research assistant at the Israeli Embassy. Lischinsky, an Israeli citizen, was an aspiring diplomat who explained on his Linkedin profile that he was committed to “expanding the circle of peace with our Arab neighbors and pursuing regional cooperation is in the best interest of the State of Israel and the Middle East as a whole.”
Sarah Lynn Milgrim, 26, was from the Kansas City area and was described by the Washington Post as an environmentalist. Her father described Milgrim as “a peacemaker” who “lived Israel and loved Palestinians.”
Lischinsky reportedly had just recently purchased an engagement ring in hopes of proposing to Milgrim in Israel.
These young, promising lives were cut short, however, by a lunatic leftist who shouted, like the many keffiyeh-adorned extremists plaguing our universities, “Free, free Palestine!”
The suspect, Elias Rodriguez, reportedly told police, “I did it for Palestine, I did it for Gaza.”
Subsequent reporting has indicated Rodriguez has been a leftist activist for some time, including being quoted in a 2017 article from a chapter of the Party for Socialism and Liberation condemning “structural racism” in Seattle, Washington.
While the mainstream media has certainly spilled a lot of ink drawing attention to and condemning far-right extremism, it’s only right that the threat of far-left extremists be called out as well. After all, the far-left has a long history of violence in this country, including the 2020 riots and the 2017 congressional baseball shooting. Conspiracy theories aside, let’s not also forget that it was a communist who shot John F. Kennedy and a Palestinian extremist who killed Robert F. Kennedy.
Israel’s war with the Hamas terrorist organization has certainly inspired far-left extremists and antisemites here in America.
Among the most visible expressions of this has been leftists trashing college campuses while chanting pro-terrorist slogans like “Intifada revolution.”
According to Time, “In September 2024, FBI data showed that anti-Jewish hate crimes had increased by 63% since 2023. Despite Jewish Americans making up just 2% of the U.S. population, reported single-bias anti-Jewish hate crimes made up 15% of all reported hate crimes in 2023 and 68% of all reported religion-based hate crimes.”
The slaying of Lischinsky and Milgrim is yet another escalation of this terrible trend.
“Violence against anyone based on their religion is an act of cowardice. It is not the act of a hero. It is the kind of case that we will vigorously pursue,” said Interim U.S. Attorney for the District of Washington Jeanine Pirro. “Antisemitism will not be tolerated, especially in the nation’s capital. We are going to continue to investigate this as a hate crime and a crime of terrorism and we will add additional charges as the evidence warrants.”
However this turns out, we hope justice is served and that this is an act which will not be replicated anywhere.
Murdering innocent people will not bring peace in Gaza. Nor will chanting slogans in support of terrorist organizations will not bring peace in Gaza. Nor will harassing or attacking Jews or Israelis in our communities.
It’s a disgrace that any of this has to be said.
May Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim rest in peace.
